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The fourth of the Society’s Saturday Morning Planning School talks was on Saturday 11th November 2017 with Rachel Fisher (Head of Infrastructure in the Cities and Local Growth Unit at DCLG) explloring the flip side of local growth – can places become too successful? Drawing on international and UK examples, the talk explored the relationship between planning policy and what happens in reality. Barry Coidan reports.

On Saturday we were treated to Rachel Fisher’s enlivening personal view on how growth happens on the ground in towns and cities here and around the world.

Rachel began with the general and took us down to the particular – Harlow, a planned town in Essex, and Haringey, a not so planned borough of London. On the way we visited New York, Bologna and Bilbao.

In general terms the conditions for growth (and prosperity) are: good jobs, homes (affordable and market priced) and connectivity – be that broadband or transport links. We’re all urban now. The 21st century is the century of cities and London takes its place as a global city – with a huge population vying for limited space. Imagine the functions of New York, Washington and Los Angeles in one place – that’s London. Its size, economy and status means it has a disproportionate impact on the rest of the UK. Scaling a map based on population, the UK looks grotesquely distorted – with London bloating out much of England south of the Wash.

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Since 2010 Governments have tried to address this imbalance by empowering local areas. Local initiatives have come and gone from Local Enterprise Partnerships through to City Deals 1 & 2, the Northern Powerhouse, Midlands Engine and the creation of six Metro-Mayors, who were elected in May. We, however, tend to see the UK as fixed in terms of growth and development. Helping one or two areas, by definition means other areas must suffer – this fosters rivalry and political stand offs. It isn’t like that – one areas gain doesn’t mean another’s loss.

Action at the local, community level is vital. Tying in all those who make up the community, who initiate and finance development, is essential. It’s not just the local authorities, local businesses and community groups but also the banks and the developers. They all have a part of play in economic growth and have legitimate views on what they see as important in encouraging and maintaining the economic and cultural life of an area.

From a planning perspective how we allocate and use space is important – what’s to be commercial and what’s to be residential must be clearly set out. Before, however, planning ahead you need to know who has the control, and whose interests are beginning served, otherwise your desired outcomes may be skewed.

The grand scheme doesn’t work anymore. Many live in sterile, isolating housing estates – these are neither rural nor urban. Today’s retail experience is a car drive to a planned retail park. What people look for when they have the opportunity are places with variety, complexity and interest. That’s what makes places interesting – detail as well as a sense of awe – the big scene. For example, in New York in the vicinity of the Lincoln centre you can witness the sun setting over the Hudson River. Seeing, witnessing that is powerful, that’s what living in a city is all about. A sense of the special. Or a square in Bologna; it’s lively, it buzzes with…people. That why people hang out there because others are also there, enjoying a sense of togetherness. Then again New York took an abandoned railway spur on the west side of Manhattan redesigned it as a “living system” drawing from multiple disciplines including landscape architecture, urban design, and ecology. In the middle of the city one can experience nature, clean air and flowing waters.

Art can be a great regenerator. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao acts as an anchor for further development, it was planned to draw in a wide range of cultural, commercial and community activity made accessible through Bilbao multiple modes of transport (bus, car and trams). Bilbao is also intergenerational – it feels really lived in.

From the Bilbao and its green mountains Rachel took us to East Essex and Harlow (New Town). Harlow, along with a number of other “new towns” was built after the Second World War to rehouse people bombed out from London. The capital’s growth was restricted by the Green Belt and the satellite new towns acted as pressure valves. This was master planning on a major scale – experience over the intervening 70 years highlights lessons learnt.

Rachel described a recent visit to the town to highlight some of its planning shortcomings. First the rail station is quite a way from the town centre – deliberately so. Sir Frederick Gibberd, who designed Harlow, didn’t want it to be a commuter town – people were to work locally. The trouble was it is ideally situated as a commuter town.

To get from the station to the Civic Centre, Rachel looked forward to a pleasant walk across a park down a well worn track. The track came to an abrupt stop at a murderous four lane highway which she had to cross and then through a car park before arriving at the town centre, where street traders were plying their trade – except there was no signage – so you wouldn’t know they were there unless by chance you happened upon them. The Civic Centre with its impressive facade is a brilliant piece of design and is made full use of with a community centre and retail space. There’s a 90’s shopping centre serviced by ample car parking space which means the centre is well used. The marketplace, however, which once had 50 stallholders died when the new shopping centre arrived.

The problem with Harlow is fragmented ownership and control. There’s no development plan so the town is subject to speculative builds. Someone wants to build here – you’ve little case to say they can’t. What’s important is effective leadership, which has the power to decide what is wanted. There’s no modern unifying vision of what Harlow is and can be.

In Harlow town centre, there’s a play park but it’s not used by kids. They’ve just lost the last live music venue yet the market place now deserted could be used instead. Recently the Government changed rules on building use -so shops could be converted into homes. That works if there’s a community and amenities, but where this has happened in Harlow the resulting new housing has not been successful. There is no link with the existing community.

Change is happening: there are efforts to enliven and diversify by creating artist studios and building on its many modern works of sculpture in the town’s open spaces and reviving marketing Harlow as “Sculpture Town”.

Haringey in North London is a melting pot. It has a reasonably successful High Street – lots of shops although their makeup, like so many high streets, is changing. Independent utility shops, the iron monger, dress shop, dairy, butcher etc are replaced by hairdressers, coffee shops and nail bars. And yet, there’s still space for really quirky shops such as one selling hot nuts. Some old high street standbys, however, are going. A long established furniture shop has closed and given way to a discount store. Independent shops are under threat and housing is really expensive. Rachel said that now she couldn’t buy into the area, so what chance those who work to provide the services in the area. They have no chance of living near to where they work. This presents a real problem for those communities and a challenge for planners and policy makers alike.

After her talk Rachel organised us into groups to chat about a couple of community issues. The room buzzed as we exchanged our experiences and expressed our views. In discussion, both planning and not planning were seen as suboptimal. We heard about Ebbsfleet, the planned new garden town on the Thames Estuary where 15,000 new homes are to be built yet so far only a small number have actually been constructed. In Romford little planning had led to the ruination of local shops with the construction of two massive Malls in the town centre. Yet Harlow was seen as good town planning with zoning, concentration on housing, excellent retail centre with space for the motor car. 70 years on we’re living with that legacy.

At the beginning of her talk Rachel reminded us that the Budget was less than two weeks away. What can the DCLG expect from the Chancellor? A plan of the new Albion?

Members are the lifeblood of the London Society, helping fund our events, publications and the work we do with the All-Party Parliamentary Group.

More than that, the engaged membership that we have gets involved in the talks and debates we hold, comes on the tours and walks, and contributes to the discussion on the sort of capital city that we want.

If you’re interested in making London a better place in which to live and to work, want to know more about the city’s history and development, enjoy seeing ‘behind the scenes’ at famous buildings and architects’ practices, then you really need to become a member.

And this is the best time at which to join. In the New Year, membership rates increase, so if you join now, you can save up to £10 off.

Many of our events sold out in 2017, so if you want to make sure that you don’t miss a talk or tour that you’re really interested in, then becoming a member gives you priority booking as well as discounted tickets.

We have nearly 1,000 individual members now and hope to get this to 1,500 next year. Join today and you’ll be part of a growing society that is educating, informing and entertaining its members. Click here for more information.

The next meeting of the forum will be on Monday 11th December at HTA Design LLP between 2.30 and 5.30 pm. Please confirm if you wish to attend with the Secretary, Drummond
Robson robplan@btconnect.com, 0778 732 6019.

DISCUSSION TOPICS:‘The Housing Problem in London: A Broken Planning System’
Introduced by Sir Mark Boleat, London City Corporation and author of the Report.
Amit Mahotra, Head of Planning at Telford Homes and Rosemarie Jenkins from Islington Council together with Nick Cluff, Land Director of Pocket Living, will provide some thoughts on Sir Mark’s paper.

Draft London Plan.Darren Richards, Head of London Plan, Rachael Rooney, Principal Strategic Planner at Greater London Authority, with John Lett, formerly an officer at GLA have been invited to prompt the discussion

High Buildings, Low Morals. Another sideways look at twentieth-century London.

by Rob Baker

Reviewed by Don Brown

Fans of Rob Baker’s blog ‘Another Nickel in the Machine‘ and his earlier collection of tales of the West End of the 20th century, ‘Beautiful Idiots and Brilliant Lunatics‘ will not need any further recommendation to buy his new selection of stories of the characters – performers, club owners, crooks and hangers on – from London’s night life.

The title comes from a Noel Coward quote (and Coward is a recurrent visitor throughout the book) “I don’t know what London’s coming to – the higher the buildings, the lower the morals.” and provides a dozen cause celebres of the last century – huge stories in their time that filled acres of newsprint – which have now been completely forgotten.

There’s Tallulah Bankhead seducing schoolboys at Eton (“We don’t at all mind you taking some of the senior boys over for a smoke or drink or a little sex on a Sunday afternoon. That doesn’t upset me. What does upset me is you giving them cocaine before chapel.“) Or Lord Boothby – formerly Parliamentary Private Secretary to Winston Churchill – and his deeply suspect ‘friendship’ with Ronnie Kray, or the drug-related death of the actress Billie Carleton in 1918.

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But these headline tales are really only the starting point for entertainingly discursive journeys through the society and associates of the principals, so the story of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll (nee Sweeney, nee Whigham), takes in Mussolini’s visit to London in 1922 (“He really is quite absurd“, opined the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon), the raffish clientele of the interwar Embassy Club, P G Wodehouse and Barbara Cartland, and the 1920s love triangle involving Jessie Matthews, Evelyn Laye and Sonnie Hale also gives us, inter alia, the background of Peppino Leoni and his Dean Street Quo Vadis restaurant.

Great stories abound, such as Terry-Thomas (then plain Thomas Stevens) taking his first job as a transport clerk at Smithfield and turning up for work wearing “an olive-green pork pie hat, a taupe double-breasted suit decorated with a clove carnation, a multi-coloured tie and yellow wash leather gloves, twiddling a long cigarette holder and twirling a silver-topped malacca cane“. Or Graham Greene wandering Soho on ‘The Wednesday’, the worst night of the West End Blitz, looking for somewhere to eat.

Baker’s other twitter account is Flashbak, photographs he has unearthed in various archives, so as you might expect, High Buildings, Low Morals is wonderfully illustrated with black and white pictures – publicity shots and movie stills of performers, advertising fliers and newspaper photos of the period.

Despite some subediting infelicities this is a great read for any fan of social or entertainment history, or for anyone who just loves an anecdote.

The third of the Society’s Saturday Morning Planning School talks was on Saturday 4th November 2017 with Dr Paul Watt of Birkbeck College University of London discussing regeneration projects: what is meant by ‘urban regeneration’ and an examination of what is referred to as ‘sports-led regeneration’ with particular analysis of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Barry Coidan reports.

Dr Watt’s talk – “London 2012 and the post – Olympics city – a hollow legacy?” began with an overview of urban policy, and regeneration in the UK and Europe. We then looked at recent Olympic Games and their raison d’être besides being sporting spectacles, before focusing on the London 2012 Olympics and its stated aims, the geographical area it was to impact on and its outcomes.

Urban Policy is broad brush: focused on area or territorial impact, not geared to a specific clientele, service provision or benefits. Regeneration seeks to bring about physical renewal as well as social and economic improvement to the area affected. This change is to be sustainable and achieved through a mix of private, public and voluntary sector involvement.

There was, however, little evidence that government decision making recognised that urban regeneration affected different people differently. This lack of recognition in developing a regeneration strategy – asking who it was for, who are to be the real beneficiaries – would impact on the desired outcomes.

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Examples of regeneration programmes in action can be seen at city and local levels. At the citywide level, New York illustrates how a city can re-imagine and re-invigorate itself. By the 1970’s New York was seen as run down, crime ridden and failing – the effect of de-industrialisation, loss of identity and job losses. Through citywide and local redevelopment, New York has remade itself as a post industrial city – somewhere you’re proud to call home -”I love NY” encapsulated that change.

The establishment of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao acted as a catalyst – attracting vibrant service industries and with many of the former industrial areas being transformed into modern public and private spaces designed by several of the world’s most renowned architects and artists.

In London there are examples of regeneration projects at the neighbourhood level. The redundant power station in a rundown part of London – Southwark – was transformed into Tate Modern Art Gallery – and in the process rejuvenated and invigorated the area around it. Shoreditch, once a run down, working class area, now sees its old industrial buildings house creative industries, flats and art studios.

There are considerable attractions in hosting a large sports or cultural event. Besides the length of the event and its scale, they attract worldwide advertising and publicity. It can also help deliver other objectives. For example, Barcelona’s main drivers of the 1992 Games were regeneration, region building and reindustrialisation with diversity in tourism and other industries. For the Chinese, the Beijing Olympics in 2008 was exposure on the world stage through massive media coverage and through delivering a first class, well run event – international prestige.

This brings us to London in 2012. The emphasis was on “the legacy” the Games would hand onto East London – the 6 “Olympic boroughs” (Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Hackney, Greenwich and Barking and Dagenham) were amongst the poorest and most deprived in London. The legacy was to ensure that they shared in a regeneration which would, over 20 years, give their constituents the same social and economics chances as their neighbours across London. This “convergence” was to be measured and monitored against a series of indicators, including education, health, poverty and crime.

In terms of the immediate impact, the London Games can be seen as a success. There was huge tourist growth, and 10% of the 46,000 employed on the site that were previously out of work came from the area. The work, however, was short term. The physical legacy was impressive: new sports stadiums, new park, and a new neighbourhood – East Village. There were 2000 new homes (51% private, 49% social housing). The area was totally unlike the surrounding areas with wide streets and open spaces contrasting with the East End’s narrow crowded streets. With a state of the art health centre and 5 new neighbourhoods the build legacy was considerable.

When, however, it came to the convergence indicators the picture was less rosy. Analysis over the period 2009 and 20015, three years before and after the Games, showed that whilst the educational targets along with those for employment rates, cancer mortality rates and additional housing had been met or were on target, others did less well. Unemployment rates may have improved over the base line but weren’t on track to meet the 2020 target, the same applied to under 75 mortality rates, and levels of violent crime. In earnings – the gap had widened; the gap between median weekly earnings between the 6 boroughs and the rest of London in 2009 was 6.6% and in 2015 it stood at 7.3% – a long way off the convergence target of 3% by 2020.

In fact, since the Olympics debt levels in the area have risen, with Newham having the highest level of personal debt in the country. How had this happened? Half of the population rent privately with some 30% on social housing. In June 2011 rents on average were £800 a month, now they are around £1200. Whilst rents rose significantly income growth was considerably less. Levels of debt have risen because people have to borrow to meet increased living costs due to rental increases.

We next looked at the effect staging the Olympics in Newham had on young people in the area. A study of the experiences of young, homeless people in two Olympic cities (Vancouver 2010 and London 2012) between 2010 and 2013 and a London follow up in 2014 painted a less than rosy picture. The young people at a hostel in Stratford were asked for their views on the stated aims of the Olympic bid. There were positive views expressed – excitement at having the Games in London. Their area felt safer with the increased police presence, there was a “community feel.” On the negative side, the improvements didn’t benefit them, they felt targeted by the police, and neighbourhood resources became too expensive, with the prospect of having to move out of the area because of the increased rents. There was plenty of new apartments and offices but no affordable housing for these young people. Whilst there were comments about how the area had been “beautified”, others wondered why only when there was the Olympics did anyone bother: Stratford had been run down for years and nothing had been done about it.

Generally views were negative. The young homeless didn’t think the improvements were for them: for example, the local Mondo cafe which they’d used in the past, was too dear for them.

The Olympics promised jobs for local people, and several people at the hostel found work, although there was huge competition and in any case the work was temporary. Between 2010 and 2014 young people found it more difficult to get social housing – Council cut backs and council housing re-prioritisation reduced their access. Even the hostel was downsizing in 2014 and the youth found themselves back home with their parents or in expensive private renting.

A Housing legacy? Two of the criteria of success the 2012 Olympics was to be judged against was additional housing and reduced overcrowding. Certainly there was and continues to be new building – except as more than one of the young people commented it wasn’t for them. It was neither affordable rent nor purchase. Newham and Waltham Forest – two of the Olympic boroughs – had witnessed double digit house price inflation in 2015. Newham was London’s “Buy to Let” hotspot. Stratford has been renewed but that renewal has bypassed those who were meant to benefit from the “Olympic effect”. 1 bedroom flats over £600k are for sale in a borough which has some of the most overcrowded properties in the country.

“Affordable” rents are not affordable as they’d take between 40 to 50% of take home pay in those in three of the boroughs. In the Olympic boroughs temporary accommodation and homelessness is higher than before 2012. Households in temporary accommodation had risen by 41% between 2012 -2015: this compares with an increase of 32% across London – itself a worrying figure. The London Borough of Newham houses 4100 plus households in temporary accommodation. Of those 41% are housed in other local authorities. A young British black found herself temporarily housed in a hostel for the mentally ill in Wandsworth. She was pregnant. After 6 weeks she was moved to a B&B in Forest Gate. Another black woman was moved out to Bexhill – the alternatives were Birmingham or Manchester. In some cases temporary accommodation turns out to be 4 in one room for 2 years. Cuts in Housing Benefit and housing provision, high rents and low wages mean local people can’t live in Newham.

We were left to draw our own conclusions about the “Legacy of the London Games” in 2012.

Member Jo East describes our visit to this grand and, er, ‘historic’Art Deco style hotel, not far from Selfridges

The Society’s party was welcomed to the subterranean Lotos Room – a grandly boardroom-style function room – by famed (Wolseley etc) restaurateur and co-owner of this Mayfair hotel, Jeremy King (Corbin and King). The architect of the project, Patrick Reardon (Reardon Smith), who has over 40 years experience of working on luxury hotels, was also in attendance.

The room is adorned with photos of famed ‘20s figures, and Jeremy explained that many if not all of these people had graced The Beaumont when the hotel was first opened by a US ‘refugee’ from Prohibition, the famed Jimmy Beaumont. Patrick explained that the hotel had fallen into the hands of a chain in the 70s, who had covered everything with Formica. Miraculously, when this was stripped away, Patrick was delighted to find many of the original features still intact, providing the basis for a magnificent restoration. By way of historical colour, Jeremy drew particular attention to the vital part The Beaumont had played in being a base for pro-British Americans, who helped Roosevelt to enter WWII.

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What? You know your London history well and this episode has passed you by? That could be because Jimmy Beaumont is entirely the creation of Jeremy’s vivid imagination. Given a site that was previously a garage – albeit a resplendent garage from the golden days of motoring – Jeremy eventually hit upon this romantic narrative to inform everything now found in the hotel, providing a depth and a ‘backstory’ that, to this day, guides everything within The Beaumont. “What would Jimmy have done?”.

Keeping only the (listed) fascia, Patrick was given a blank canvas to create this 72-room hotel. The original blueprints of the garage helped inform a design to create, as Westminster Council cryptically asked, “something similar but not the same” – this ultimately involved digging down two basement levels (between two bores of Crossrail), and growing two floors taller. As further demanded by the Council, the new building had to include some public art: Antony Gormley came up with a striking cuboid design of his body to stand on one corner; drawing on Jimmy’s playfulness and patronage of the arts, Jeremy asked for a rethink so that instead of just being “stuck on the outside” the sculpture was an actual hotel room too, which people could stay in. So the extraordinary Scandinavian-style bedroom we later visited was created. (Here the living room opens onto a pure white bathroom and then up some steps, past a drape, into the “stomach” bed room. Centre stage a pure white double bed is surrounded on all sides by dark wooden cladding. Apart from the doorway, the room is punctured only by a single window, designed so those in bed see only sky.)

For the actual tour, we were placed in the hands of Jannes Soerensen the Hotel Manager and given privileged access not only to Gormley’s room (215 if you fancy spending a night), but also to one of the suites, a “standard” (anything but) room, the spa, the guests’ bar and the public areas. Jannes is just as passionate about the Beaumont as Jeremy but, with a schooling at The Bristol in Paris, brings to the project the perspective of a lifelong hotelier.

The photographs best convey the understated Art Deco-inspired style of the hotel but it is the “heft” of all the material that cannot be conveyed. That and the waft of the signature Jo Malone scent – “earthy but with a hint of citrus, which is Jimmy’s aftershave”, as Jannes explained.

So next time you are around Oxford Street I urge you to sidestep down Duke Street to Brown Hart Gardens, and join the many Americans who have adopted The Beaumont as their unofficial club – as they have since its imagined foundation, some time in the 1940s.

The central London branch of the Historical Association has arranged a private guided tour of Spencer House, London’s finest surviving 18th century aristocratic palace, on 17 December.

Built between 1756-1766 for John, first Earl Spencer, an ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, Spencer House is in St James’s Place and is recognised as one of the most ambitious aristocratic town houses ever built in London and the city’s only great eighteenth-century private palace to survive intact. This magnificent house has regained the full splendour of its late eighteenth-century appearance after a ten-year restoration undertaken by RIT Capital Partners plc, under the Chairmanship of Lord Rothschild.

Derwent London plc owns a 5.6m sq ft portfolio of commercial real estate predominantly in central London valued at £4.8 billion as at 30 June 2017, making it the largest London-focused real estate investment trust (REIT).

We typically acquire central London properties off-market with low capital values and modest rents in improving locations, most of which are either in the West End or the Tech Belt. We capitalise on the unique qualities of each of our properties – taking a fresh approach to the regeneration of every building with a focus on anticipating tenant requirements and an emphasis on design.

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In 2017 major deals were secured on our development at 80 Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia W1 and our flagship project White Collar Factory in Old Street EC1 completed. Our landmark canalside development Brunel Building in Paddington W2 continues apace and will be completed in 2019. The Group won awards from the RIBA, Civic Trust, Property Week and EG and is listed 12th in the Corporate Knights Global 100 of the world’s most sustainable companies.

London must patch up its relationship with the public over so-called affordable housing by defining its parameters more realistically. But City Hall is aiming to help address quality and the housing shortfall across the capital through more intervention over land assembly, a commitment to tackling supply with new methods of construction across many tenures and a new name-and-shame database on rogue landlords.

Those were some of the key issues to emerge from the recent meeting of the APPG for London’s Planning and Built Environment at Portcullis House.

Chair Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton, introduced the session on how we can deliver genuine high quality homes for Londoners and address a crisis over affordable provision.

Deputy mayor for housing and residential development James Murray said that there had been ‘remarkably few’ opportunities to tighten up the speed of getting the new draft London Plan into place, but that it is expected on 29 November. The story of London over the last two decades, though, was of a 40% increase in jobs, 25% climb in population and 15% in housing supply. ‘It has been a story of jobs and economic success, but housing failure’, he said. ‘It simply hasn’t kept up with demand’. There is an ‘affordability gulf’ in what we are building, and although traditional housebuilders have a large role to play they tend to focus on the high-end homes for sale. London needs some 66,000 homes a year, according to new GLA figures, with 2/3 of them having to be affordable.

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The £3.15bn secured from government was crucial not just in the headline amount, said Murray, but in the flexibility it provides to look at a range of different affordable housing types. A measure to introduce fast-track planning for developers delivering 35% affordable is ‘moving in the right direction’, with 38% affordable secured from planning applications in the first 6 months according to London First figures. But in the discussions Murray has had thus far it had been clear that land was the big hold up, hence City Hall signalling it will be doing more to assemble land, get it into the system and boost supply. ‘Government really needs to support a different approach to building homes if we are to make that leap in delivery’, he said.

David Montague, group chief executive of L&Q said his organisation plans to double its housing output from 2,500 in three years, and then again to 10,000 by the end of year 10. ‘We’re an ambitious organisation but this is a marathon, not a sprint’, he said. The key challenges are on investment and a major intervention needed by central government ‘at a different scale’; land – with a pipeline of clean, serviced, consented land required; skills, especially given Brexit; and collaboration. ‘It will take collaboration and courage if we are to deliver on this new scale, and we have pledged to set our differences aside to deliver a step change.’ Finally, Murray said City Hall is about to launch a ‘name and shame’ database to highlight landlords behaving irresponsibly and ease problems in the private rented sector.

Julia Park, head of housing research at Levitt Bernstein, said that although affordability was a far greater challenge than quality in London, more could be done and it was important not to slip back. ‘I don’t think good quality housing costs much more than poor quality housing’, she said. ‘The trouble is, that’s the bit that gives’. Quality therefore needs to be ‘locked in’ through regulation and planning standards that are stuck to’, said Park, who added that office to residential permitted development rights should be dispensed with. Other speakers included Heather Cheesbrough, director of planning and strategic transport at the London Borough of Croydon, who said that design and placemaking are underpinning the authority’s approach to intensifying, and Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith and former shadow housing minister, who stressed the need for effective ‘dealmakers’ to draw in investment from developers and put an end to what he saw as a ‘regression, almost a war’ on affordable housing from the current administration.

But it was Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood who stresses that we need a different approach to affordability. ‘I think the definition of affordability has become completely broken’, she said. ‘It is one of the biggest contributors to a loss of trust around housing.’ Government officials and policy leaders talk about the issue using definitions that have no bearing on what people can actually afford and too many, said Hayes, see housing as being ‘for someone else.’

Corporate Supporters and Professional Members of the London Society receive invitations to attend meetings of the APPG for London’s Planning and Built Environment. For more information, please email director@londonsociety.org.uk

Loyd Grossman has made a considerable contribution to civil society and is perhaps best known as the host of shows such as ‘Through the Keyhole’ and ‘Masterchef’ and for his own range of cooking sauces.

Beyond this, Grossman has had a lifelong interest in history, the arts and heritage, where he has served on the boards of a number of notable cultural institutions, including English Heritage, the Museums and Galleries Commission and the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association.

The evening event provided the opportunity to gain an insight into Grossman’s role as the first chairman of ‘The Royal Parks’ charity. The lecture took place at the St Marylebone Parish Church, which is just a stone’s throw away from Regent’s Park, one of the eight Royal Parks.

The Value of the Royal Parks

Every single person in the room has been to the Royal Parks – once a year, once a month or some of you may use them almost everyday. With around 7.7 million visits a year, the Royal Parks are very different other cultural assets / institutions. The Royal Parks are essential to our wellbeing and should be considered ‘one of ‘London’s single greatest assets’

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Although the basis of the Royal Parks was founded on the royal love of hunting, this has evolved to provide the public with unparalleled opportunities for relaxation, exercise, entertainment and education. Steen Eiler Rasmussen the author of ‘London: the unique city’ noted that the Royal Parks are welcoming places providing tranquillity, sporting opportunities and now what we call well-being.

The Royal Parks do not encapsulate the ‘classical beauty’ of Parks and Gardens in France. However, as someone who grew up Boston, Grossman reflects that the Emerald Necklace (a 450 ha chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline) was certainly inspired by Frederick Law Olmsted visits to London’s Royal Parks.

The Challenges

The Royal Parks is a charity setup launched in July 2017 to support and manage 5,000 acres of Royal parkland across London. The parks are owned by the Crown with their responsibility resting with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The Royal Parks charity manages the parks on behalf of the government and responsibilities include i) building up a reserve of funds and plan future investment; ii) maintaining an independent voice from government; and iii) developing a closer relationship with the public.

Managing the portfolio of the Royal Parks is immense and diverse. The Royal Parks are responsible for 600 buildings and structures (including 195 listed buildings), approximately 170,000 trees and 68 miles of paths, cycle routes and horse-rides. Richmond Park, the largest of London’s Royal Parks, is defined by wide open spaces, grasslands and deer herds, whilst Greenwich Park, part of the UNESCO Greenwich Maritime World Heritage Site is a mix of green space, gardens and historical features. A lesser known fact is that the garden of 10 Downing Street is looked after by The Royal Parks. Grossman commented that ‘I can say that I mow the prime minister’s lawn.’

The Royal Parks charitable objectives are to protect, conserve, maintain and care for the Royal Parks, promote their use for public reaction, health and well-being, maintain and develop biodiversity, support the advancement of education and to promote national heritage. However there a number of challenges and risks facing the Royal Parks:

Government support for arts and culture is in decline, due to competing demands.

London’s rising population is contributing to increased pressure on the infrastructure of the Royal Parks. For example soil compaction is an issue, where people trample over the roots of trees, as a consequence trees need to be ring-fenced for protection.

The value of the parks are their openness. However, developers are constantly chipping away at the Royal Park estate. The Royal Parks have stood firm on their position that they will not allow any loss of open / green space from new development.

There is also constant pressure for new monuments / memorials e.g. a new bomber command structure in Green Park. There are numerous proposals and if they were all approved, this would create parks top-filled with monuments and memorials, leaving little room for anything else.

Biosecurity is a constant threat, most recently with toxic oak moth caterpillars. It costs approximately £4,000 a year to control this constant threat of these caterpillars, whose poison can be fatal to dogs and sometimes humans. Trees are also prone to diseases from new parasites. Parasites can come from overseas through the importing of cheap furniture.

Conflict of use can be tricky to manage, for example Regent’s Park is a popular place for cyclists, but is also a place that is used by pedestrians and motorists. One of the biggest challenges is to balance competing interests, which can often lead to endless consultations to make sure people are happy, safe and secure in the parks.

Future Plans

Upcoming projects include the rejuvenation of Greenwich Park, which is the oldest of the Royal Parks and serves a number of different constituencies, some which are subject to social deprivation. Over the last 20 years this park has received little investment and some of the infrastructure has started to deteriorate. The Royal Parks charity will restore the steps leading up to the Royal Observatory and the famous viewpoint.

The annual cost of managing the parks is £36.6m, about 65% is self-generated through events, sponsorship, donations, catering, grants, lottery funding, licenses, rental income from lodges, filming and photography. Grossman notes that ‘The work done to maintain the park is not done by elves’. The Royal Parks have over 500 staff who are responsible for growing 90% of the plants in the parks (which provides value for money) and for maintaining the high quality standards of the parks.

The Royal Parks charity wants to encourage more philanthropic support for the Royal Parks from the public. The charity can not increase the number of money making events e.g. Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, as it is important that the parks remain a place for all users. The Royal Parks will always be free to access and The Royal Parks charity will continue to raise funds to protect and improve these spaces. Ultimately, Grossman concludes that he wants to “make sure from 20 years from now that they will remain the best urban parks in the world,”

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